Saint Druon De Sebourg (French Abbey Ale) | Brasserie Duyck

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Reviews by metter98:

A: The beer is hazy golden yellow in color and has a light amount of carbonation; lots of yeast particles are visible floating in suspension. It poured with a finger high bright white head that never quite completely faded away.
S: The smell is very fruity and has aromas of apples and pears along with hints of grainy malts.
T: Like the smell, the initial taste is both fruity and sweet while the finish has a light amount of bitterness and some notes of spices and yeast.
M: It feels light-bodied on the palate and has a moderate amount of carbonation. There are some hints of dryness in the finish.
D: The beer is easy to drink and the good balance between the sweet and bitter flavors makes the taste rather interesting.

More User Reviews:

Pours a slightly hazy golden with a big fluffy white head that leaves a generous amount of lacing behind,clovey,smokey phenolic aromas are dominant there is a light citrus quality but it is light compared to the smoke and spice.Flavors are nice but dont seem to meld together to well spicey and a litte woody with some apple notes with that aways present phenolic smokyness thru to the finish and aftertaste.Not a bad French ale but not up to the standards of their neighbors for sure.

Quite smooth and creamy on the palate, light-bodied with a hard water mouthfeel. Crisp with a sharp-ish green apple and lemony zest citric bite, and a tingling carbonation that amplifies. Light flavors / sweetness of juicy orange slices. Some raw honey. Lager-like, tinny, sour-ish ("skunky") herbal bite. Spicy phenols and a bit grassy around the edges. Touch of astringency. Yeasty in the finish, with notes of breadiness. Drying.

Eh. Tastes more like a Euro lager than an blonde abbey ale, but whatever. Its barely interesting, unbalanced, and many of the characteristics appear out of place.

Presentation: 11.2 oz brown bottle with a freshness date on the label.

Appearance: Good initial head though the retention lacks a bit, good clarity on a light orange brew.

Smell: Apple skin, tree bark and herbal phenols in the nose.

Taste & Mouth Feel: Fluffy slick mouth feel with some crispness. Odd fermented malt twang with suggestions of spoiled apples and lemongrass. Spicy with a touch of yeast in the middle. Mild hops with a sweet finish.

Drinkability & Notes: The flavors just dont seem to blend well, not bad just not a balanced brew.

Wow ... I am surprised that the Shelton Brothers bring this brew in, certainly low for their standards.

11.2 ounce brown bottle, 03/2005 printed on the label. Calls itself a "french Abbey ale" but this is just some good misleading propaganda. Oh well, I've ben had, this is not an abbey beer or anything close to one, what you get here is a light clear, Middle of the road Euro lager, boo. Not very tasty stuff either, heavy lime notes, grassy and cabadgy , pass it by...

Clear gold appearance with a very white frothy head of 1/2 an inch. Bubbles are very uniform in size. Laces relatively well, rings of collars down the glass. Sharp aroma, lightly skunky. Body is lightish, carbonation high and fluffy in texture. The flavor is fruity, some esters but lemony with some peach cobbler tones. Bittering is crisp but understated, matching understated malts as described earlier. Not striking, seems muted in its overall statement despite decent flavors. A little middling but interesting, and the style seems hybrid in a lot of ways. It has the fruitiness of an Ale, if not an Abbey Ale as the bottle claims, maybe a Blond.

To say this looks like Duvel in the glass might just be the antithesis of heresy. But similar to the poured Devil, this is a mostly clear, sandy golden adorned with a explosive styrofoam buoy of white suds.
From here on out, it can barely pass for a minor evil enitity.

Aromatized of lumps of old-mown grass, flour, sulfur, and lemon rind.
First off, it forms a hay-like dryness, with whispers from both honey and pear. The middle is sweetened, leaning on spun sugar. Yeast nuance is nearly invisible, flounting minor pastry dough hues. Extis with a wiff of sulfuric lemon cleanser hops.
A fluffy, folded medium body, rushed with bubbles, is promising up front, but that dissolves into a stagnant hefty Euro-lager feel.
Not awful, just unfufilling. And even moreso as it warms.

A - Clear yellow-gold with a one finger head of dense white foam. Head retention is really nice, and a good smattering of wet lace coats the glass.

S - Sweet Belgian confectioner's sugar, hearty yeast, caramel, and chewy nougat filling. Reminds me of those Charleston Chew long skinny candy bars that are filled with really chewy white stuff. A little hop note graces the tail end of the aroma, and reminds me of the smell of a springtime meadow. Some floral notes are there too.

T - Grassy hops, herbal/floral freshness, and a nice dry biscuit malt backbone. This is a tasty brew! Complex outdoorsy notes combine to put images of a grassy prairie, a flowering garden, and an East Coast grassy beach in mind. There is an initial sweet note, but its much drier and more astringent than the sugar coated nose suggests. Fresh and floral like a cool rain shower.

M - Medium bodied, but progressing towards the lighter end of the spectrum at the finish. This is initially sugary, but soon transitions to grassy/twangy in the midpalate before becoming desert-dry at the finish.

D - I can appreciate the complexity presented here, and I love the nose and the multifaceted mouthfeel. The extreme dryness and the grassy flavors are a bit much for me to put this in the "session beer" category, but its a really nice beer to slowly savor.

Clear, amber-gold in hue, the liquid really looks ordinary. (The second pour held all the sediment, the liquid got cloudy at this point.) Fluffy white head, at the apex the foam was three fingers tall and it didnt allow me to pour all the beer into the glass. Head retention was excellent, as the head slowly faded tattered wallpaper began to appear on the side of the glass. I absolutely love that! A small cap lasted the entire consumption. The subsequent lacing was great, very widespread. I cant say enough for the loveliness of the appearance.

The nose starts of airy with hints of marshmallows and a faint, grainy spiciness. I adore this aroma. In the middle, herbs and apple notes develop as does some grass, wood, and veggies. The first time I tried this beer, I didnt care for the Saaz hop/DMS aroma. I found it much softer this time around and I like it. Moderate potency in the nose, while not too chatty I do like what it is saying. I will say the nose is more Euro-lager like then French/Belgian Ale-like. It is inviting, nevertheless.

The first third of the palate is dry, clean, with some biting, earthy-spicy hops. Hops rule the start. The malt is crisp and brittle, almost Pilsner-like. At this point, this beer is very lager-like. The last third, before the swallow, it turns ale-like with apples, spicy alcohol, herbs, clove, grass, plus some minimal malt sweetness. The aftertaste is sweet with an herbal, spicy underbelly, apples too. All in all, the palate is kind of simplistic but I found it agreeable. Too clean for the style; even when I poured the yeast it the palate didnt get much dirtier so to speak. The aftertaste was enhanced; its sweeter with some more herbal notes. I think the yeast in the glass adds to this beer nicely.

Zippy carbonation, medium/medium-light in body, the mouthfeel fits this beer very well. At 6% abv, this is not a session beer but the hidden abv in the taste and the easy mouthfeel is doing its best to convince me to drink more at one setting then I should

This is to say, I found it drinkable. This was a totally random purchase; I was really hoping that French Abbey Ale would mean Biere de Garde. For $9 a four-pack I was a bit disappointed. I cant win them all. Even though I liked this beer I dont know when Id drink it again. It is too pricy and there are better beers that are similar to this yet, I bet, I buy it again at some point. I have no idea why this beer is jiving with me to each is own, I guess. I purchased it in Council Bluffs, IA. Solid.

Pours pale clouded tan. An inch of creamy foam and nice lace subside slowly to the surface. Smells like cut green apples with a medicinal sour edge, some horse blanket funk, and phenolic touches. Quite plain and short in flavor. Barnyard hay and toasted grains flash across the palate quickly, leaving a slightly sour and gently hopped finish.. Rather light in body and full of over-spirited carbonation. Not something I would return to.

On tap at Abbaye, served in a Duvel Green glass. 1/4" head white head and a nice clear golden straw colored beer. Hints of earthy hops in the nose and some sweetness from the pils malt, but not much else. Enjoyable fruity esters upfront, but finished a bit to sweet for me. The beer was a bit thin in the mouth, and the head faded quickly leaving no lacing. Overall an enjoyable beer.

Out of a 750ml corked and caged bottle. Pours a crystal clear golden straw color with a sticky white head that clung to the side of the glass. Looks like a bud with a good head. The aroma is floral sweet with a touch of honey and grassy hop, some nice peppery spice as well. Nice clean aromas. A sweet pale malt, honey, some candi sugar and a modest peppery/grassy hop presence. Seems to be the French/Belgian version of a pilsner. The feel is moderate, has a noticable malt presence, very soft carbonation, finishes sweet. This is what I envision a BPA to be; sweet pale malt with a peppery hop. Could use some more carbonation.

A golden colored ale (not a lager, according to the label) with a perfumy bit of lemon and large fluffy head which settles to a thin collar of foam. This beer has very nice mouthfeel at first, but as the head settles it seems to be a bit thin. Very pleasant citric notes with a hint of a buttery flavor. Very drinkable for its strength. This beer needs a little more complexity to be called an abbey ale, but it is a pleasant enough quaffer. Found quite cheap at $3.99 a four-pack.

From the caged, corked green 25 fl. oz. bottle marked L9062-08:16. Sampled on November 12, 2011. It looks like a Belgian Pale Ale with its golden pour although the head isn't much. Sadly, this came in a green bottle along with its inevitable skunky aroma that supersedes any decent analysis. After a few whiffs I can get some sweet, candied malts and citrus. The body was very pleasant falling into the medium range with a honey-like smoothness. The taste was a tad better than the aroma with solid sweetness of malts and a mild and appropriate bitterness on the end. I guess I'm glad I bought it for under $7.

750 ml bottle with labe as shown in the beer's avatar, purchased in January 2007 at Hi Time Wine in Costa Mesa, CA. for $6.97.

Pours a very clear yellow-golden with a nice creamy white head, and lots of carbonation bubbles that last a long time- the streamers keep a coming. That makes for a nice white head and more than a fair amount of lace on the glass. Quite nice.

Aroma is strong at first blush- quite organic, farmhouse in nature, even though this isn't a farmhouse ale. Grass, hay, weeds, must all come through. In the flavor, this aroma has settled to the background, still there, but covered by cornbread sweetness (not corn adjunct flavors, but cornbread). It's pretty simple flavor, but not unpleasant. Actually, quite sippable, goes down easily. Not overly complex, and as such, perhaps not a classic beer, but when you are thirsty for a nice simple pale ale, this one works just fine.

This was a very nice light bodied ale. Predominated by the yeast and wheat flavors, it was quite refrshing and a good solid choice. Lots of complex flavors could be found upon closer examination include, apples, pears, apriot, fig. Just a nice little abbey style ale, nothing too fancy and nothing over the top. Very sessionable and enjoyable, brought a six pakc out on the boat and everyone of them was enjoyed. This is easily a very solid offering from a brewery I hadnt even heard of a week ago.

A: A beautiful gold bordering on amber. Not too much head, but it does leave an interesting lacy coating on the glass which dissipates after a while.

S: Belgian yeasts definitely present, with some faint honey and peppery spices. Floral freshness and the scent of just-cut hay is also there.

T: Belgian yeasts coupled with a nice, lively, peppery taste. There is definitely a noticeable sweetness, which is reminiscent of honey water and faint maple syrup. Finishes with a hop bitterness that recalls the same aftertaste of Moretti La Rossa.

M: Somewhat thin and watery, yet left a certain slickness.

D: This is a nice summer beer; fun to drink and cools you off. The honey water taste definitely adds a nice touch, but the strange hop aftertaste is a little off-putting.

Cloudy golden color with a white, bubbly head and lacing. That's where most of the good of this beer ends. Smell is sour- way, way too sour. Overboard lemon sour. Almost brought tears to my eyes. Taste was odd- applesaucey. Sweet, but rotted sweet. Just off. Mouthfeel was bubbly but was quite heavy, too heavy. Meh, won't grab this again.

St. Druon de Sebourg has a thin, loose, white head and an opaque, bright-orange appearance, with scant lacing and brown yeast pieces afloat. This clouds up even more upon swishing the bottle and pouring in the residual yeast and gunk. The aroma is strong- alcohol, fermented grain, sugar, citrus rind, and dates. Taste is of a similar cast, with an overall old character. Hop bitterness is minimal. Mouthfeel is medium and chewy, and St. Druon de Sebourg finishes mostly dry, mellow, and relatively easy drinking. It is unusual, as bier de garde tends to be, but I rate it excellent, nonetheless.

Med-light gold in color with orange hints. The head is moderately-sized, almost pure white. The aromas are delicate, fruity, floral, and honey-sweet. Faint spicy phenols as well. Flavors include delicate malt with a mild balancing bitterness. There's a little bit of honey-like sweetness but things dry out in the finish. Subdued citrusy notes feature in the aftertaste.

For all of its subtleties, there's not much "interference" in this beer, thereby giving it an easy drinkability. The 6% ABV, despite this ale's mostly delicate nature, isn't too pushy.

This is a pretty good beer worth picking up should you happen across it.

I wouldn't call this a Belgian Pale Ale -- it's closer to a Belgian Blond Ale. The French do brew this style, and wouldn't you know, they call it "Blonde" beer, just as Brasserie Duyck does on the label of St. Druon.

Half-pint at Coles in Buffalo - told it was a hoppier bier d'garde. Arrives a hazy light straw golden color with a little head.

Nose is sweet with hints of lemon and grassy hops. Taste is lemony with a pleasant grassy and lemony hop bitter finish, a sweet almost candy middle from the malt, hints of apples and pears. Drinkable and light, not overly complex and too sweet, needs a drier finish. Drinkable but not overly complex.